Landlord & CoFounder | Property Tribes

Vanessa Warwick is co-founder of landlord forum & community, Property Tribes, as well as being a landlord since 1992 and a portfolio landlord since 2004.  Vanessa is in regular demand for her commentary and insights, and has contributed commentary to mainstream media such as The Sunday Times, the Telegraph, the Guardian, and Estates Gazette.  

She also co-hosts the “Landlord Lens” webinar with NRLA CEO, Ben Beadle, where they discuss trending topics for landlords.

Being a community manager, Vanessa has her finger on the pulse of what is causing landlords pain, and the topics that are engaging them and she writes many articles to educate landlords on best practice, risk mitigation, and how newbies can get started in BTL safely.

The National Residential Landlords Association

Richard Blanco buys, lets and manages properties in six London boroughs.  His areas of interest and expertise include buying at auction, managing the development process, encouraging positive landlord tenant relations, financing and business strategy.

A long-standing member of the National Residential Landlords Association, has a keen interest in housing policy, press and media and regularly comments on housing matters through talks, blogging, press, radio and TV.  Richard is a regular presenter of House Hunters International which broadcasts in the USA and globally on the Discovery Network and presents the NRLA podcast 'Listen Up Landlords' and 'Inside Property' for Share Radio.

Chief Mortgage Officer | MFS

Mike joined Market Financial Solutions during 2021. Having previously helped provide billions in mortgage lending through customer-centric propositions, he was excited to bring over 25 years’ experience to the MFS team and help bring their new buy-to-let product to the market.

Starting in Blue chip companies Aviva Investors and Arthur Andersen, he joined fledgling specialist lender Kensington in 2003 to run software development to implement new regulations. This began his mortgage proposition journey when he moved to the front line as Head of Mortgage Products. Mike briefly joined Lehman’s in 2007 as VP Mortgage Products and joined ING Direct in 2008 where he tripled annual mortgage lending ahead of joining Bank of Ireland.

After 6 years, the lure of a start-up challenge meant Mike joined Vida Homeloans in the founding team as Director of Products & Proposition. He left Vida at the end of 2020 having originated a book of £2bn, at which point he joined MFS.

CEO | The SDDE Smith Group

A property entrepreneur with over 15 years first-hand experience in residential, commercial and holiday home property investment, property development and holiday home management.

Dale Smith has grown what is now The SDDE Smith Group from one holiday home in March 2017, to a group of six customer facing brands including Host & Stay, over two hundred employees, and a forecasted group turnover of over £25million for 2022. 

James Bouldin recruits properties in his area of Sufolk for cottages.com – the UK’s largest holiday letting agency. As one of over 50 regionally based holiday letting experts located throughout the UK, James spends his time helping local holiday let owners maximise the return from their property. With years of experience in the UK travel sector with previous positions at Park Evolution and The Beeston Group, James has helped hundreds of owners realise their holiday letting ambitions. James has successfully worked with owners with a variety of letting experience including well-established owners, those switching from another agency and even owners who are completely new to holiday letting or are just thinking of buying a property. As a holiday letting expert, James can provide advice to any owner who is looking to profit from UK staycations with tips on where to buy, the most in-demand features and other methods to maximise the return on their investment.